Could Have, Should Have
Disclaimer: I hereby claim no rights to the fabulous tale and characters and basically everything involving Harry Potter.
He should have told him so many things then. He should have never been there in the first place.
He should have, could have, looked into his face—as familiar now as his own was in the mirror—and allowed the truth to pour from his lips. The uncompromising truth.
He should have told him, as if he did not already know, about how wrong this was. They were supposed to be enemies; where had they gone wrong? He can not remember an exact time; in all his memories now all he can see is silver eyes burning into him. Silver eyes that had always been there, like a light in the back of his mind, like a support beam as everything crumbled around him.
Perhaps that can explain it all. Does he really need this boy anymore? Now that everything has started to sway to normal, now that he knew what it would cost them both? Did he dare let his heart speak for him?
He came to him with the intention of ending things.
He had planned out the exact words, had envisioned the exact expressions he would make. He would get angry and then he would tell him to leave and he would, without hesitation, and that would be that. It would be over, and they would both be safe.
Safe from what, exactly?
That is the only thing he still does not know. He does not let himself know. He can blame it on a number of things—Lucius, Voldemort, who they were, who they had been. But all of those things, when used as an excuse, did not seem right. They did not seem to make up the whole picture, as though a vital part is missing, and deep down he knows what it is—the heart. Those excuses have no heart in them.
But what is it that is in his heart?
He wants to protect him, and he is not even sure why. He wants to make sure that he at least lives, when he knows that he should not care. Years of insults, years of hate and agony and competition; how many kisses had it taken to erase all of that from their minds?
And why was it that he can not remember much before those kisses began?
The flat looks as it always has as he appears in it for what he thinks will be the last time. It is still as green as it was only a few nights ago, still as spotless and neat. For some reason the sight of it, of the green pillows on the black leather couch, of the brick fireplace, of the cold hardwood floors, makes a lump form in his throat. As hard as he swallows it will not go down.
Will it choke him for the rest of his life?
How long, exactly, is his life?
He wishes he could count the seconds; he wishes he can take them back.
The crushing force of time threatens to overwhelm him as he stands in the familiar living room of his lover's flat, and he wonders, as he has over and over and over again, how it was that time had brought him here. He wonders at how quickly time moves and changes to make his heart feel like it is dying just at the thought of what is to come, just at the thought of his familiar face.
A face, after years, he knows better than his own. A face that time has never let him forget.
One look back into silver eyes makes him forget that time even exists at all.
He is in front of him then, his eyes are glowing, his face looks happy. It is breaking his heart that he can not smile back for him.
Or perhaps he can?
His heart is dying but his lips are smiling back, back at the oblivious blonde that he knows is danger, back at the man who he knows is poisoning him slowly through the heart. His fangs were sinking in so deep.
He could not blink; time is slowing, slipping away until there is nothing left. He can not make himself look away from him, not now. Not ever.
The silver eyes steal his words. The silver eyes bury them, burn them, make them turn to ash in his mouth. The silver eyes make him wonder if there had ever been words at all.
"You're here," the silver eyes tell him, "You came back."
Of course I did, he thinks desperately, savagely. Of course I did, did I even have a choice?
His heart is beating frantically; his mind is screaming. When a pale hand finds his arm and squeezes he thinks that he is a small mouse and he is being eaten alive by a python. He should never have become that mouse.
"Harry…" he hears his name whispered in that voice. That same voice that for years had brought him misery and now brought him unwanted pleasure, that voice that could fill him up as much as it drained him, broke him and revived him. "Harry come here…"
Get closer so that I can eat you up.
Sometimes Harry can not help but think that he knows that he's the snake and Harry's the mouse; sometimes, when Harry looks at him he can see a gleam in those silver eyes that lets Harry know that he knows all too well what he is doing to the Savior, and like a noose, like an Anaconda, only tightens around him more and more.
So that he can no longer breathe.
He should have walked away from him then; he could have told him everything, he could have told him all the excuses there were.
He could have, he should have.
Would it have made a difference?
As he falls against him, as he lets the snake have its prey, would it have mattered?
Words have always been lost between the meeting of grey and green. Words have never mattered as the worst and the best—so similar in the two—were brought out within them, between them.
Would words have mattered now?
Draco Malfoy has always brought out things in Harry Potter.
Even things he never wanted to know about.
Would any of it have made a difference?
Lips clash, emotions crackle, hearts beat and beat and beat; will they ever stop?
There is no time; there is all the time in the world. It all slides away, the excuses, the pain, until there are two people, two boys, falling together.
Would it have made a difference?
Not as far as love was concerned.
Would it have mattered?
No. Because Draco Malfoy already knows it all anyway.
Random little drabble-like thing. Just needed to get some feelings out I suppose.